Benedict and nancy freedman biography
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Benedict Freedman did not have a curriculum vitae typical of a mathematics professor emeritus. He wrote 10 novels with wife Nancy—the best known of which, Mrs. Mike (1947), was adapted into a 1949 film starring Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes. He was a staff writer on radio for Al Jolson and Red Skelton. He became an Emmy-winning TV writer for Skelton, and penned some 500 scripts for series ranging from "The Andy Griffith Show" to "My Favorite Martian."
Then again, Freedman—who died February 24 at age 92 in Corte Madera—lived anything but a typical life. "Much as I would like to attribute my success to innate qualities of mind and character, inom must admit that the principal part was played by luck," he wrote in a self-evaluation for a Faculty Council review in 1982. Born on Dec. 19, 1919 (a "potent" number in the Kabbalah), he noted, "I was born lucky, inom have lived lucky, and inom expect that when I die it will be by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune."
A New York native who ent
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Nancy Freedman dies at 90; feminist had long and wide-ranging literary career
Nancy Freedman, a novelist whose wide-ranging books include the bestselling “Mrs. Mike,” co-written with her husband, has died. She was 90.
Freedman died Aug. 10 of temporal arteritis, an autoimmune inflammatorisk disease of the arterial vascular system, at her home in Greenbrae, Calif., said her husband and frequent writing partner, Benedict Freedman.
In a literary career that began in the late 1940s and continued until her death, Freedman wrote or co-wrote 20 novels.
The first was “Mrs. Mike” (1947), the story of a 17-year-old Boston girl coping with living in Canada’s northwest wilderness with her Mountie husband in the early 20th century.
A bestseller that appeared in 27 utländsk editions and remains in print, “Mrs. Mike” was turned into a 1949 movie starring Dick Powell and Evelyn Keyes.
Other novels written with her husband include “The Apprentice Bastard” (1966), the story of a disillusioned man
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Benedict Freedman
American mathematician
Benedict Freedman (December 19, 1919 – February 24, 2012) was an American novelist and mathematician, the co-author of Mrs. Mike and a professor of mathematics at Occidental College in Los Angeles.[1]
Life
[edit]Upbringing
[edit]Freedman was born to a Jewish family in New York City.[2] His father, David, emigrated to America from Romania. He studied at Columbia University from ages 13 to 16, but dropped out without graduating after the death of his father. He took up his father's profession as a radio writer, and moved to the west coast where he worked for MGM Studios.[1]
Career
[edit]Writing
[edit]Freedman met his wife Nancy Freedman in 1940, when she was trying to break into acting. They married in 1941 despite her poor health; during the war Freedman continued to write, but also worked as an aeronautical engineer for Hughes Aircraft. The couple wrote their 1947 novel, Mrs. Mike, based o